Igiza Arts Production of The Homecoming at Kenya Cultural Centre was an emotional affair, filled with tension and high-strung nerves, the kind one can only know in a family that’s filled with disappointments that reverberate through the years, never to be forgotten. Scripted by Obura with input from Igiza’s cast, the story flows from the notion of the family’s first born son Timothy (Harold Omondi) coming home after many years abroad. StayingIgiza Arts Production of The Homecoming at Kenya Cultural Centre was an emotional affair, filled with tension and high-strung nerves, the kind one can only know in a family that’s filled with disappointments that reverberate through the years, never to be forgotten. Scripted by Obura with input from Igiza’s cast, the story flows from the notion of the family’s first born son Timothy (Harold Omondi) coming home after many years abroad. Staying mainly in the US, we soon learn how he’d gotten9 a green card, which allowed him to legally work and live there without the stigma of illegal residency. The story opens with the mom, Mrs Talai (Milkah Wangui) fussing and tidying up over last minute details as she reminisces about her long-lost son. Clearly her favorite child, the one she claims she adored, it’s the family’s house help Harriet (natasha moraa) who stakes her claim that Tim was ‘her boy’ in the sense that she was the one who looked after him in his early years when his parents were elsewhere either working or gallivanting around the town. Either way, everyone has high expectations about Tim’s return, including his brother Thom (Bonaventura Wachira) who suffered as the second born and the one who remained at home, feeling unappreciated and holding a grudge towards his brother. He’s rather like the brother of the prodigal son in the Bible, the one who silently witnesses his brother’s return as he can hardly hide his mixed emotions. Then there is Tiffany (Edna Kariuka), the sole female sibling and the one most easily forgotten. Yet, she has done very well for herself. She must have realized early on that there was no point in pandering to parents whose don’t-care attitude towards their girl child taught her pursue her own way forward. It was Dancun (Jeff Obonyu), the delightful gardener who brings some comic relief to this otherwise high pitched play that often times saw people shouting in tones that were unnecessarily loud. Both Dancun and Harriet bring the light touches to the play about a family falling apart before our eyes. For once Tim finally arrives home, he quickly shatters everyone’s high expectations of him. First, he has brought with him a self-centered African-American woman (Grace Adhiambo) who disgusts everybody except Tim. She reflects some Kenyans perspectives of black women from the US. She is so full of herself that she alienates everyone from the moment she arrives. And the fact that Tim values her enough to bring her home also reflects badly on who Tim has become. But he joins the lament at the news that his father just died before he came. They are sad but Tim explodes with stunning hatred towards his mom who never told him his dad was dying or that he’d finally died. His rage towards her gets ugly as it doesn’t seem to be only about his missing to see his father before he passed. It’s not quite clear what she did that drove him to shouting so ferociously at her. But if what she did was comparable to what he threw back in her face, then whatever it was clearly had a damaging effect on him. To say his view of her is radically different from her perspective of him is an understatement. Mrs Talai is clearly keeping secrets that she’s convinced herself never to tell. Why this is so, we will never know. But she is so nervous about letting her stories leak that she declared she was leaving before we could get to the bottom of it. She was obviously wounded by Tim’s blasting of her, but in fact, there are issues surrounding his demise that are peculiar and problematic. For instance, why was the father cremated when that process of burning bodies is abhorrent to his community. It’s not the way they cope with death. And where did the will go that left his whole estate to the mom and Tim? All that seems quite suspicious. But the mother can’t let her son have the last word. She spits out the central question, where were you when he needed you? Why didn’t you come when he called? She claimed dad even bought a brand new phone thinking his phone must have been bad, so why not get a new one which will pick up his illusory call. In the end, nobody wins that family war, except for mom, whose last words sound true, that The Dad died of a broken heart. mainly in the US, we soon learn how he’d gotten9 a green card, which allowed him to legally work and live there without the stigma of illegal residency. The story opens with the mom, Mrs Talai (Milkah Wangui) fussing and tidying up over last minute details as she reminisces about her long-lost son. Clearly her favorite child, the one she claims she adored, it’s the family’s house help Harriet (natasha moraa) who stakes her claim that Tim was ‘her boy’ in the sense that she was the one who looked after him in his early years when his parents were elsewhere either working or gallivanting around the town. Either way, everyone has high expectations about Tim’s return, including his brother Thom (Bonaventura Wachira) who suffered as the second born and the one who remained at home, feeling unappreciated and holding a grudge towards his brother. He’s rather like the brother of the prodigal son in the Bible, the one who silently witnesses his brother’s return as he can hardly hide his mixed emotions. Then there is Tiffany (Edna Kariuka), the sole female sibling and the one most easily forgotten. Yet, she has done very well for herself. She must have realized early on that there was no point in pandering to parents whose don’t-care attitude towards their girl child taught her pursue her own way forward. It was Dancun (Jeff Obonyu), the delightful gardener who brings some comic relief to this otherwise high pitched play that often times saw people shouting in tones that were unnecessarily loud. Both Dancun and Harriet bring the light touches to the play about a family falling apart before our eyes. For once Tim finally arrives home, he quickly shatters everyone’s high expectations of him. First, he has brought with him a self-centered African-American woman (Grace Adhiambo) who disgusts everybody except Tim. She reflects some Kenyans perspectives of black women from the US. She is so full of herself that she alienates everyone from the moment she arrives. And the fact that Tim values her enough to bring her home also reflects badly on who Tim has become. But he joins the lament at the news that his father just died before he came. They are sad but Tim explodes with stunning hatred towards his mom who never told him his dad was dying or that he’d finally died. His rage towards her gets ugly as it doesn’t seem to be only about his missing to see his father before he passed. It’s not quite clear what she did that drove him to shouting so ferociously at her. But if what she did was comparable to what he threw back in her face, then whatever it was clearly had a damaging effect on him. To say his view of her is radically different from her perspective of him is an understatement. Mrs Talai is clearly keeping secrets that she’s convinced herself never to tell. Why this is so, we will never know. But she is so nervous about letting her stories leak that she declared she was leaving before we could get to the bottom of it. She was obviously wounded by Tim’s blasting of her, but in fact, there are issues surrounding his demise that are peculiar and problematic. For instance, why was the father cremated when that process of burning bodies is abhorrent to his community. It’s not the way they cope with death. And where did the will go that left his whole estate to the mom and Tim? All that seems quite suspicious. But the mother can’t let her son have the last word. She spits out the central question, where were you when he needed you? Why didn’t you come when he called? She claimed dad even bought a brand new phone thinking his phone must have been bad, so why not get a new one which will pick up his illusory call. In the end, nobody wins that family war, except for mom, whose last words sound true, that The Dad died of a broken heart.

DR ZIPPY WENT TO ZANZIBAR ON A QUEST

By Margaretta wa Gacheru 9posted august 29, 2023)

Dr Zippy Okoth does something that few if any other Kenyan woman can do. And that is to promote herself. There is a line in her latest solo show, Zanzi Madness, which she performed last Friday night at kenya national theatre that reflects what she also desires. It went something like “I don’t want to be a star in my lifetime; I want to be an immortal legend.” More women today than ever before aim to be successful in a male-dominated world. But few would proclaim that aspiration so publicly. Her frank honesty alone makes her special. Zippy is shameless about her passion for self-promotion. She’s outspoken and fearless about telling the truth about her life experiences. So much so that they become the focus and content of all of her solo performances. It is for that honesty and courage that I admire her so much. I also loved her latest autobiographical account of her first trip to Zanzibar, irrespective of any shortcoming in the show, and there were some. Like starting her show holding cue cards, as if we were going to see a dress rehearsal rather than a professional production. But then the cards could also be seen as props used to break down that wall between the audience and the actor.

In fact, one of the first things she tells us is that she’s not just an actor, she is a storyteller, giving her the freedom to narrate as well as reenact her life. But here is where I feel she fell short slightly. She is an inspired storyteller, highly animated and energized. What’s more, she introduces us to a wide cast of fascinating characters during her nine-day stay on this enchanting place. She has an official role as a judge at some (probably the zanzi film fest). But unofficially, she is there to find the man of her dreams, her forever soul mate. That is why she buys a condom, much to the chagrin of the female saleslady who is shocked by her brazen buying. But she is shocked as the high price of condoms especially as they used to be free and now cost 400 odd shillings. But she figures, better to be safe than sorry. She already has two girls and doesn’t need another. But she does need a man to foot the school fees to enable her daughters to go to the best schools, which most women won’t admit. Zippy meets any number of candidates, all of whom never quite fit the bill. There’s the one who calls her ‘Chocolate Beauty’, one she calls ‘Big Eyes’ because every time they meet, she feels he undresses her in his head. There’s Hamus the chef who she proposes to because she loves his food so much. Of course, she is joking and the show is all about her having a wildly entertaining time. So entertaining that she’s told on the last night to be the ‘entertainment’ during the festival’s gala dinner. Since that’s what she does, by definition, she has no problem with it. But she is still sad that she didn’t find Mr right.

She had also met an old white man who entertained her for an evening and even stayed the night at her hotel. But apparently, he slept on the sofa. But we never got the details. And that is the problem with the show. Not the need to know about her sex life. But she’s happy to tell us before we ask. At one point she admits, she “needs sex” and to prove it, she reveals she still has the packaged condom. The problem I had with Zippy is that she could have given us more storytelling not less. For instance, she could have fleshed out the other characters, especially the men that she checked out to see if they might be Mr Right. They weren’t, but as a storyteller, she could have given us more in-depth perspective on the quirky

characters who crossed her path. Instead, she sought to cover them all superficially, but she needed to give more time presenting them with more nuance, insight and detail. For instance, what happened to Big Eyes and the Chocolate beauty man, and the guy who looked like a cross between Kenny Rogers and Trump, and so many others? The problem wasn’t what she gave. It was that she didn’t give us enough. So, carry on being ambitious and gifted, but dig deeper for the sake of the stories you share.

MWACHA MILA, SWAHILI WISDOM INSPIRES FIVE ARTISTS TO CREATE

0126 Mwacha Mila is a Swahili proverb which, loosely translated, means ‘He who leaves his traditions is a slave’. It is also the name of the art exhibition of five young Kenyan artists from Eastlands who got together around the idea of illustrating the concept embedded in the proverb into pre-and post- colonial imagery. Opened last weekend at Nairobi National Museum’s Creativity Gallery, all five were on hand to get their viewers involved in an interactive exercise. “We presented them with a large blank sheet of paper and then invited them to make their mark on that page using oil pastels available to get them involved directly in the creative process. The only condition we gave them was that they ought to first check out the show before they responded to the paintings they have seen,” Joyce Kuria told BDLife a few days after the opening on August 11th. The five artists were all there to introduce themselves to their audience. They were Joyce Kuria, Daisy Buyanzi, and Husna Nyathira as well as Daddo Omutiti and Ebrah Ndungu. “We have known each other for a while, having met at exhibitions and in the streets where one or more of us was making wall murals and graffiti art,” says Joyce who was instrumental in proposing they have an exhibition together.

Four of the five identify themselves as ‘self-taught’ artists with the fifth having studied fine art at Kenyatta University. Ebrah was there briefly but left in less than a year, having felt he was wasting his time there. He had already seen how thriving a Kenyan art world was growing outside Universities’ hallowed halls and wanted to be part of it. Daisy says she studied accounts at USIU and got the degree. But her heart had always been in painting which is how she met Joyce and Husna at the Studio Soko in South B. They have been collaborating ever since.

Husna had studied IT and initially was shifting into digital art when she met Joyce and Daisy. Now they work together, but she also does other things like book illustrations and Virtual Reality work. Daddo started painting later than the rest. But he has moved quickly to create his own unique style and advancing from there. Both he and Ebrah have been influenced and inspired by the trio of graffiti artists, BSQ. Daddo also references Swift 9 as a mentor. Graffiti has clearly influenced all of these artists. But Joyce says science fiction has also seeped into several of her paintings. That is how she painted a cyborg [half human, half machine]. Her cybor initially looks like several other of her men, attired in traditional garbs; but if you look closely, you can see that one has a pair of sunglasses which are really his cyborg insignia. Then, teaming up with Daisy to form the team, Wet Paint, the two have developed their style of blending the traditional with the post-modern in which traditional male figures appear surrounded by images of computer mother boards.

Meanwhile, I’m nor clear how the other three artists align their artistry with the concept, except that all of Daddo’s lovely portraits of women look like they are hot-wired, perhaps to have sci-fi styled means of communicating, telepathically. And both their and Husna’s plants are beautiful. But at the same time, they look like they could have been genetically modified to be food to be lab-grown when the future arrives. Meanwhile, Daisy’s masked men and women still dwell in beautiful leafy green, untamed jungles. Yet again, if you look closely, you will see that her characters, like Ebrah’s and Husna’s, are living in pre-climate change environments. Alternatively, their imagery also has a sort of surrealistic, science fiction-like vibe. With regard to the media used by the five, Ebrah works almost entirely in acrylic paints, used to create bold expressions of faces that feel electrified. Only his mwana wa mumbi uses mixed media. This is in contrast to the others.

Daisy for instance used a mixture of media including kitenge fabric while the Wet Paint duo team works in mixed media, including wooden sticks as in a work like ‘Beyond’ using the sticks to create pre-colonial-like (cotton (nor leather) shields containing faces of post-modern faces of men. And both Husna and Joyce have moments when they paint in water colors, although Joyce blends her water colors with pen and ink to reveal her skill as a draftswoman. In all, Mwacha Mila is an exhibition that shouldn’t be missed.

TEWA TAPS INTO GLOBAL INTEREST IN PAN-AFRICAN ART

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted August 28, 2023)

The internet has become a global art gallery where artists both interact with one another and with the public and prospective clients. Its main channels of exchange and public display are Instagram and What’s App. It’s most effective among the ‘youngsters’, those ingenious generations who have grown up with WIFI and cell phones and Instagram. They are also the ones who find Facebook passe, the space where their parents and occasionally their grandparents go because they think they can spy on the youngsters there. They’ve never heard of SnapChat which is one that an eight-year-old introduced me to and where I’m hearing from increasing numbers of artist friends who are mostly under 30. It was online, mainly on Instagram, that Thadde Tewa met all fifteen of the under-30-artists whose works he curated and is currently exhibiting at Village Market in the large assembly hall on the top floor next to the parking area.

The exhibition which he entitles ‘Unbound: A Glimpse into the Future of Figurative Art in Africa’ is actually a Pan-African affair, showcasing artists from Nigeria and Angola as well as from Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan and Kenya. The majority of paintings are by Kenyans. And while he’s met all of them face-to-face, they still find the quickest way to communicate is online via What’s App. “I wanted this show to be about the so-called emerging artists, the ones who may be young but they’re gifted and eager for the exposure I want to give them,” Tewa tells BD Life the day before the show’s official opening rece And while many might want to be showcased in the older, more prestigious galleries like One Off, Circle, Red Hill, and Banana Hill, that time is likely to come if their talent endures and their techniques polished and improved. Actually, there is lots more attention being given to young gifted artists than ever before. There are more ‘Open Call’s’ being sent out from various platforms from all ‘round the world. That includes the galleries referenced above as well as institutions like the Nairobi National Museum, Kenya Museum Society, Mukuru Art Club, Wajukuu Art Centre, Brush tu Art Alliance, Kuona Artists Collective and also the newly-revived Kenya Arts Diary. All are paying more attention to up-and-coming artists who are gifted but under-exposed and wanting an opportunity to be made more visible.

“I’d been following a number of artists online and I’ve seen them put their latest works on Instagram to let people know what they are currently doing,” Tewa explains. “Quite a few already have clients who are collecting their art. The collectors are especially interested in seeing what their artist is working on right now,” he adds. What seems clear is that Kenyans are increasingly including themselves in an international online art scene. They might not yet be as notable as the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui. But our more established artists are already logging into the pantheon of contemporary African art. For now, the young Kenyans in this show are all in their 20s and they’re mostly men, including Coster Ojwang, Eric ‘Stickky’ Muriithi, Kelvin ‘Kevo’ Wambugu, James Kagima, Munene Kariithi, Rasto Cyprian, Solomon ‘Solo’ Luvai, and Tim Ochola. Among the women in the show, there are two from Kenya, Muthoni Mwangi and Njeri Kagima James, two from Uganda, Babirya Erinah and Victoria Nabulima, two from Nigeria, Oluwatobiloba Fasalejo and Bridget ‘Bibi’ Van Grieken, one from Rwandan, Joso Pierre, and one from Angolan Benigno Mangovo. The show itself is impressive, especially as so many paintings had to be shipped in. And given Tewa’s ‘art gallery’ is also virtual, mobile, and practically a one-man show, one can’t help appreciating his initiative and commitment to African art.

There are many gems in this show. For instance, Bridget van Grieken’s ‘Blue Dream’ is haunting in its portrait of an African blue-black beauty while Victoria’s women in ‘The Waiting’ also seem to tell a story that their assemblage knows too well, and Blasto Cyprian’s ‘Baptism’ seems to be filled with expectation and hope. Kelvin Mwangi’s ‘Man, Go Unchained’ could easily be the most obvious expression (out of the over 40 paintings in the show) of the Exhibition’s title, ‘Unbound’. “The horse in the painting doesn’t have a bridle, yet he moves freely with the [shirtless] man riding him with ease,” says the painter who looks surprisingly like the horseback rider. There is a lot more to see and discuss about this show. One hopes Tewa will host an ‘Artist Talk’ or two before the exhibition ends.

CYRUS' RADIOS AT GOETHE INSTITUTE AS PART OF AMPLITUDE OF SOUND

Cyrus Kabiru is such a humble man that the public might never know that he is globally-acclaimed as well as the artist who create all the jua kali junk radios being shown as part of the current Goethe Institute exhibition-installation, ‘Amplitude of sounds”. It was curated by a cast of eight who apparently forgot to attribute the radios’ creator, this jua kali giant. Don’t expect any complaint coming from Cyrus however. He has got too much on his mind to give his lack of attribution a thought. He has already received so much adulation from elsewhere, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in new York which recently acquired one of his radios. And that is just one of the many cultural capitals on the planet where his radios, spectacles and bikes have been appreciated. His public lecture, given in LA on ‘Giving Junk a second life’ is even on YouTube. But part of Kabiru’s appeal for me is his fascinating life story which you can see revealed through his art in both two and three dimensional forms. Each reflects a different facet of his life, including generations that preceded him. For instance, his jua kali radios relate to his grandfather who was the first person in their village in Muranga to own a short-wave radio. “Every evening ten minutes before 6pm, neighbors would come to our home just to listen to BBC‘s Swahili version of the news of the world,” Cyrus told BDLife when we met recently at One Off Gallery. The radio shaped villagers’ mind-sets, he said, so that if they heard about Oxford, they would vow to send their child to Oxford. That went on until AM/FM radio arrived in Kenya and his ‘Guka’ got one of them. “After that, he handed down his trusty shortwave to my father who in turn eventually handed it down to me.” Cyrus said, noting that Guka’s radio is actually in the Goethe Institute show. He received it while still commuting between muranga and Korogocho where he grew up but was sent to stay with his grandparents for fear that he’d ‘get lost’ like his friends who Cyrus said, today are either in jail, drug dealing, or dead. That decision to shift him out of town was a life-changer for cyrus. He had already found his love of art in primary school where he’d draw caricatures of his classmates for pennies. So, by the time he got to rural areas, he was prepared to get to work. The only problem was he had no art materials. But he found them amidst the junk that people throw away, starting with bottle tops which he could easily get from local bars. By the time we first met cyrus at Kuona Trust, he was already creating smashed bottle top sculptures like the giant crocodile which he’d shaped with chicken wire and flattened bottle tops. “I had guys go to local bars and collect the tops for me,” he told me back then. He said he wanted to create art that spoke to him, like the radios he eventually made, after he’d become world famous with his C-Specks, and which also had a family story associated with them. Like the guka who wouldn’t allow anyone to touch his radio, cyrus’s dad wouldn’t allow him to touch his spectacles. As a result, the fruits of that suppression inspired Cyrus to create his own glasses, which he named C-specks after the public took note of his unique form of sculpted ornamental eye-ware. As it got more intricate, symmetrical and beautiful, and ever-worn by the artist as model, they were then shared online, and international art centres, magazines, and even big-name Black musicians wanted to know more about him and his art. That is also when he got invited everywhere from Hollywood and New York to London, Berlin, Milan, Tokyo, and even Cape Town where the brand new Zeizz Museum of Modern Art gave him an entire room to display his C-Specks. Meanwhile, Cyrus was also starting to develop his Black Mamba bicycle series, based on the bicycle his dad wouldn’t allow him to ride. Again, he decided to create his own jua kali bike in his own style. Another unique creation was born, which also grabbed global attention. But it’s still the spectacles that have gained the greatest attraction and hurled him into an international spotlight few Kenyans know about since cyrus is still a humble man, even as he opened up his studio to apprentices whom he mentors up to now.

SET IN THE SLUMS, MATUMAINI TELLS YOUTH’S STORY VIA HIP HOP AND RAP

By margaretta wa Gacheru (8.27.23) Matumaini, Youth Theatre Kenya’s latest production staged this past weekend at Nairobi Academy, has all the makings to perform a musical masterpiece. First and foremost was producer-director Jazz Moll’s ability to assemble a classy creative team of musicians, choreographer, costume and stage designers, and scriptwriters to ensure that all the moving parts of this ambitious show come together harmoniously. He’s even got voice and acting coaches to assist his cast of 100 youth, ages 9 to 19. Especially important to the accuracy of the tale which is based on recent history, are his researchers. They clearly dug deep into the scene where the story is set. It’s the Dandora dumpsite where there’s a thriving local economy based on trash collection and its trade as well as crime. There are also countless youth who’ve got hopes and dreams as well as big problems related to poverty and unemployment. To bring out their idioms of expression as well as their emotions, anxieties, and aspirations was the challenge of both the researchers and the writers who were led by YTK’s long-time colleague, Lizzie Jogo. The set designer was another important character since the choice of venue, Nairobi Academy’s Sports Centre, had its plus and minus points. On the positive side, the spacious Centre lent itself to the creation of a theatre-in-the-round experience. It also afforded room for the 100 cast members who danced and sang throughout the show, occasionally creating a cacophony that conflicted with the lines of lead actors like Anna (Amie Rae Katta) and Joseph (Lali Abdalla). It was their story that was at the centre around which swirled themes like teenage pregnancy and the impact of political corruption on vulnerable youth desperate to find ways to escape poverty and get a new lease on life. Music and rapping were Joseph’s starring talents and he hoped they’d lead him into wider harvest fields than trash collection in Korogocho and Dandora. This is why YTK’s musical team were so important. This time round, the company attracted musicians who came from as far as UK and US to perform for the show and bring wonderfully nuanced music even as they had an impressive team of local musicians performing on everything from violas, violins, and xylophones to flute, keyboaord, sax, trumpet, trombone, and drums. Even the set changes were impressive and quick, thanks to the innovative use of mabati sheets backed by wooden handles and carried as a means of making new configurations of rooms and mabati homes. On the negative side of the Sports Centre were the acoustics which I found horrible, making it hard to hear the story at times. But one thing that puts Matumaina in the running for winner of KTA’s kikwetu award were the range of local languages, Sheng, Kiswahili, and English all used to enhance the authenticity of the show’s portrait of life in these so-called informal settlements or slums. The love story between Anna and Joseph was complicated from the beginning since the first thing we knew about her, besides her being daughter to the community leader (Mtele Mohammed) is that she was pregnant and had’t told Joseph about her condition. Incidentally, this was the perfect moment to hear local views on pregnancy, abortion, and family planning, and thereafter inject at least an idea that Anna had options other than giving birth at her tender age. But for some reason those topics are not discussed. The scriptwriters had other issues to explore, particular the universal themes of hope and despair. We also saw what a Mafia-styled operation the land-grabbing politician (Nelson Safari) was running, using his minion, Pinches (David Katana) to manipulate vulnerable youth with promises the politician never planned to keep. Having the poli standing high overhead of the slums and the poor people beneath, was symbolic of his dominance over them. He was the one who raised the issue of building a recycling plant in the heart of their land. He said it would bring much needed jobs and revenue to the unemployed. But by his hiding the title deed and pretending it was lost, he only offered a ploy to distract the youth whose leader, Anna’s father, was getting in his way by asking too many questions. He had to go. The play ended abruptly just as it did in act one, with a gun appearing and then somebody getting shot. But did the father die or not? So, the show’s a cliff-hanger and a story well told. Perhaps YTK can get a better sound system next time.

FIVE ARTISTS BLEND THEIR ART IN SHOW AT NATIONAL MUSEUM

Mwacha Mila is a Swahili proverb which, loosely translated, means ‘He who leaves his traditions is a slave’. It is also the name of the art exhibition of five young Kenyan artists from Eastlands who got together around the idea of illustrating the concept embedded in the proverb into pre-and post- colonial imagery. Opened last weekend at Nairobi National Museum’s Creativity Gallery, all five were on hand to get their viewers involved in an interactive exercise. “We presented them with a large blank sheet of paper and then invited them to make their mark on that page using oil pastels available to get them involved directly in the creative process. The only condition we gave them was that they ought to first check out the show before they responded to the paintings they have seen,” Joyce Kuria told BDLife a few days after the opening on August 11th.

The five artists were all there to introduce themselves to their audience. They were Joyce Kuria, Daisy Buyanzi, and Husna Nyathira as well as Daddo Omutiti and Ebrah Ndungu. “We have known each other for a while, having met at exhibitions and in the streets where one or more of us was making wall murals and graffiti art,” says Joyce who was instrumental in proposing they have an exhibition together. Four of the five identify themselves as ‘self-taught’ artists with the fifth having studied fine art at Kenyatta University. Ebrah was there briefly but left in less than a year, having felt he was wasting his time there. He had already seen how thriving a Kenyan art world was growing outside Universities’ hallowed halls and wanted to be part of it. Daisy says she studied accounts at USIU and got the degree. But her heart had always been in painting which is how she met Joyce and Husna at the Studio Soko in South B. They have been collaborating ever since. Husna had studied IT and initially was shifting into digital art when she met Joyce and Daisy. Now they work together, but she also does other things like book illustrations and Virtual Reality work.

Daddo started painting later than the rest. But he has moved quickly to create his own unique style and advancing from there. Both he and Ebrah have been influenced and inspired by the trio of graffiti artists, BSQ. Daddo also references Swift 9 as a mentor. Graffiti has clearly influenced all of these artists. But Joyce says science fiction has also seeped into several of her paintings. That is how she painted a cyborg [half human, half machine]. Her cybor initially looks like several other of her men, attired in traditional garbs; but if you look closely, you can see that one has a pair of sunglasses which are really his cyborg insignia. Then, teaming up with Daisy to form the team, Wet Paint, the two have developed their style of blending the traditional with the post-modern in which traditional male figures appear surrounded by images of computer mother boards. Meanwhile, I’m nor clear how the other three artists align their artistry with the concept, except that all of Daddo’s lovely portraits of women look like they are hot-wired, perhaps to have sci-fi styled means of communicating, telepathically. And both their and Husna’s plants are beautiful. But at the same time, they look like they could have been genetically modified to be food to be lab-grown when the future arrives.

Meanwhile, Daisy’s masked men and women still dwell in beautiful leafy green, untamed jungles. Yet again, if you look closely, you will see that her characters, like Ebrah’s and Husna’s, are living in pre-climate change environments. Alternatively, their imagery also has a sort of surrealistic, science fiction-like vibe. With regard to the media used by the five, Ebrah works almost entirely in acrylic paints, used to create bold expressions of faces that feel electrified. Only his mwana wa mumbi uses mixed media. This is in contrast to the others. Daisy for instance used a mixture of media including kitenge fabric while the Wet Paint duo team works in mixed media, including wooden sticks as in a work like ‘Beyond’ using the sticks to create pre-colonial-like (cotton (nor leather) shields containing faces of post-modern faces of men. And both Husna and Joyce have moments when they paint in water colors, although Joyce blends her water colors with pen and ink to reveal her skill as a draftswoman.

In all, Mwacha Mila is an exhibition that shouldn’t be missed.

KIBERA GALLERY HOLDS ART COMPETITION FOR YOUNG ARTISTS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 8.25.23) Uweza Gallery and its founder Jennifer Sapitro had the right idea when they decided to organize the ‘Wasanii wa Mtaani’ visual art competition and especially looked for young artists coming from ‘under-served’ suburbs (otherwise known as ‘informal settlements’) like Mathare, Mukuru, Korogocho, and Kibera where the gallery is based. The exhibition and competition explicated aimed “celebrating young artists from Nairobi neighborhoods,” their poster read, including the venue where the show would be held, Alliance Francaise. To that end, they had established just one criterion, which was that the artists be between the ages of 18 and 30. “We were really targeting young, up-and-coming artists from underserved communities,” Jen told BD Life on the day that selected judges were appraising the art that filled all of AF’s upstairs and downstairs walls. Plus, in one corner of the downstairs show, there were scores more paintings that couldn’t be hung for lack of wall space. “Those works are not necessarily less significant than the art that’s exhibited,” Jen said. “But we did try to put up the best art out of the three pieces that we had invited artists to submit,” she added, noting that they’d received 205 paintings in all. In fact, the Call Out that went online to all the social media platforms and networks elicited a rich response from a wide range of artists, mainly those just starting out on their creative careers. According to Uweza’s country director Japheth Okoth, the gallery was the first site of selection where the works were received. Of those 205 works, they were scaled down to 180. After that, a jury of five, who had been recommended by AF’s Harsita Waters, were invited to come help adjudicate the finalists, first shortlisting the numbers down to ten of their best picks. Then, each of their final ten were collected and collectively voted on. Ultimately, they could only pick three winners in all: the first prize and then two runners up, one male, the other a female. “One of our objectives was to highlight women artists which is why we created a special award for them,” Jen said whose Uweza Foundation also works with several other community service projects, assisted by a Grant given by a combination of donors, including EU, British Council and HEVA. “We also aimed to be democratic and transparent in the selection process,” Okoth added. It wasn’t an early process, all the adjudicators agreed since so much of the art received was quite good. The judges were five, including Thom Ogonga, artist and editor of Nairobi Contemporary magazine, Judy Ogana, representing UNESCO, Anitah Kavochy, artist based at Maasai Mbili, and Dr Margaretta wa Gacheru, author and journalist with Nation Media. And chairing the adjudication process was Alliance Francaise Director Charles Courdent who expressed appreciation for the quality of much of the art already on display. “We at Alliance Francaise are delighted with the art being exhibited,” Charles told a gallery-full of young artists, their families, and friends as he welcomed them and officially opened the exhibition. “We are witnessing the emergence of the next generation of contemporary Kenyan artists,” noted Peterson Kamwathi, one of Kenya’s most acclaimed artists who had come to the opening last Thursday night together with Michael Soi, another leading local artist who shared Kamwathi’s perspective. Coming from them meant a lot to those who knew who they are. The place was packed by the time the winners were announced. One can imagine the enthusiasm of hearing names of the winners. The first prize went to Isaiah Mulunga, 21 from Mukuru Artists Collective, while the two runners up were James Kamande, 30 from Mwiki, and Risper Achieng, 26, from Kariobangi. The winners will receive Sh60,000, Sh50,000, and Sh50,000 respectively. The one award the judges were not involved in was the People’s Choice which was selected on opening night by the people who came and found the ballet box at the entrance of Alliance and voted for their favorite artist, Okoth explained. The most thunderous of hoots, ululations, and applause came when Faith Lonah Mokeira was named the People’s Choice. She’ll receive Sh25,000. The petit painter was swamped with family and friends once they heard her name called. On opening night many of the young artists had never been to Alliance Francaise before. But while scores of selfies were being taken, one could see that most of them felt comfortable in the gallery and are likely to return. Meanwhile, the AF Director has already agreed that this competition and exhibition should become an annual event at Alliance.

I&M’s GED SARIT SHAH A MAJOR COLLECTOR OF KENYAN ART

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 8.23.23) Sarit Raja-Shah’s journey to becoming one of the leading collectors of contemporary Kenyan art is a fascinating story. “I’ve had a passion of art since I was young, but I didn’t become a serious collector until after my return from the University of London where I studied Business and Finance, not art,” he told BDLife several months after I&M bank’s glossy coffee-table sized book entitled ‘The I&M Art Experience’ was launched. A book whose back jacket rightly notes that ‘It’s a feast of Artistic Excellence’ as it contains nearly 30 of Kenya’s finest artists including everyone from Peter Elungat, Beatrice Wanjiku, and Paul Onditi, to Anthony Okello, Kamal Shah, Michael Musyoka, and many more. The book was actually curated by the bank’s Group Executive Director, Mr Shah, who collected all the art himself. But these are only a fraction of what the bank has subsequently acquired, coincidentally during its own expansion in the early 2000s. New branches of I&M were opening up all over Nairobi and around the country. “I saw all those empty walls and felt our people deserved to see beautiful art,” Mr Shah explains when we meet at the bank’s Parklands Branch which is also a place where the walls are filled with exquisite works of art, nearly 200 paintings and 14 sculptures in this branch alone. Son of a banker who used his creativity to think of ways he could grow Kenya’s financial sector, starting by establishing the Investments and Mortgages Company which subsequently became I&M, so his son, Sarit has given much thought and attention to what ways he could grow the arts sector in Kenya. In that way, both father and son have mutually expressed their commitment to the country which is laudable. Fortunately, Sarit’s father is fully supportive of his son’s passion for art and for what he has done to beautify the bank’s branches. Sarit sites 1997 as the pivotal year when he got serious about collecting Kenyan art. “That was the year the Upper Hill branch of the bank was opened and I commissioned Nani Croze to create her [Kitengela] glass art to hang on our walls,” he recalled. He had already collected works by the late Robin Anderson, who, with Yony Waite and David Hart, has established Gallery Watatu, one of Nairobi’s first commercial art galleries in 1969. He had also acquired a major collection from Sarang Gallery. Then came RaMoMa in 2000, and he got to know Carol Lees and Mary Collis, its founders. “The first art I bought at RaMoMa was by Peter Elungat,” he said as he showed it to me in the book. After that, Sarit says he found his passion for art become “infectious.” Then when the bank put up the 14 floored I&M Tower on Kenyatta Avenue where African Heritage Pan African Art Gallery had once stood, his collecting skills accelerated. The bank even established a foundation to assist Maasai and Samburu women bead artists to develop new designs and make their art more sustainable. Then in 2015 when he heard the Art Auction East Africa would be launched that year by Circle Art, the bank became its sponsoring institution. “I had actually attended my first art auction at RaMoMa and acquired several pieces that night, so I know how important art auctions can be,” he added, noting the following year, Stanbic Bank took up sponsoring Circle’s Art Auction. Sarit didn’t mention the influence his bank may have had in illustrating for other corporates the value of sponsoring art events. But we asked him what more he felt his bank could do to encourage other corporates to act as he has done? Certainly, some are picking up the idea of buying more Kenyan art and growing the potentially lucrative local art world with funding and other means of promotion. Interestingly, Sarit never referred to art as an investment, but he was clear that Kenya’s creative economy can grow faster with corporate support. He referred to Coca Cola as one corporate that already has an impressive collection of African art. As for Sarit Shah, he will continue going around to assorted art spaces to see what artists are doing. That was clear from my walk around just one floor of the 1 Park branch of I&M and seeing lots of excellent art which didn’t appear in the book. According to I&M’s Karanja Nzisa, “In all, the bank owns over 300 artworks,” which are displayed in all the bank’s East African branches, from Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda to Tanzania and Mauritius.

Meetings have consequences.

Meetings have consequences. That’s the first take away one gets from watching John Sibi Okumu’s play, also entitled “Meetings’ which was staged twice last Sunday at Alliance Francaise. Directed masterfully by Prevail Arts’ founder and award-winning actor, producer, director, and scriptwriter himself, Martin Kigondu, the play was a refreshing way to look at some of Kenya’s darkest days during its recent past. Embedded in the post-coup event of the early 1980s and into the ‘90s, it was an apocalyptic era when Daniel arap Moi gave a green light to goon squads going out to collect anyone breathing a hint of criticism of him or his autocratic regime. That meant spies, moles, and traitors to ordinary Kenyans, like Ben Teke’s character, Meshack were everywhere such that no one knew who they could trust since your neighbor might be a spy for Moi. And then the next thing you knew, you were picked up overnight like Samora’s and Faoulata’s father, Augustus (Gibson Ndaiga) who had to flee the country before he was tortured in the basement of Nyayo House? No one dared speak their mind, leave alone the bitterness they felt for the loss of freedom of speech which had befallen both the country and on families like the ones shattered during those traumatic times. Meetings is an intimate portrayal of one family’s matriarch, Gran (Marrianne Nungo) and her efforts to bring her children together after their ties had been shattered, both by politics and also by delicate sensitivities that might not have been as easy to see when Meetings was first staged in 2012. It’s those latent and nuanced subtleties that Kigondu’s directing brought out in his outstanding cast that made this performance so important and hopefully, it will be restaged during the Kenya International Theatre Festival (KITFEST) in October. The first unraveling of this dysfunctional family’s past comes as Augustus and his African-American son, Samora (Cosmos Kirui) return home after the father’s 26? year of exile in the States and his son being introduced first to his jovial Uncle Julius (Emmanuel Mulili) and then to the sister Faoulata (Red Brenda) who he had never known he had until his Gran/Uncle had told him of her existence. This is just one of the curious secrets revealed during the play’s multiple meetings. Julius is one of those who was bitter towards his older brother Gus even before Moi came into power. But his internal wound only festered while his bro was away and sending much needed cash to their mother, Gram. It only spills out at their final meeting in the play and left unresolved. Esther, Gus’s girlfriend before he fled the country, had never told him before he left that she was pregnant and gave birth to Faoulata. So Esther suffered as a single mother who blamed Gus for going, but was conflicted since she knew she’d never spilled the beans before he left. So she too has tender feelings when he came to see his girl child and the siblings got to meet. Faoulata also had to ensure that her boyfriend Zeke (Steve Gitau) meet her Gran since she seems closer to her than to her mom. Gran is approving of the lad, irrespective of the fact of his being the son of the traitor Meshack who Gran been with at Makerere University where she had been the first woman from her village to attend university. In fact, the play starts off with the first of a series of meetings, with Gran regaling her granddaughter with tales of her past life being a hot chick who followed trendy fashions and drove the men wild with her flirtatious figure and matching intellect. But she is a widow now and wants nothing more than to bring her family together and heal the wounds in the process. But what we see from this bird’s eye view into the one-on-one meetings is that they all are individual and have consequences that are not necessarily resolved in single sessions as seen in the play. One other reason Gran wanted that last meeting is for Samora to see how complicated his extended family is. He has the role of hope of the youth in the future. Hope is also reflected by the anticipated wedding of Faoulata and Zeke, she being the child of a freedom fighter before he fled and Zeke, son to a post-colonial Home Guard who now enjoys the fruits of so-called Uhuru that only those who compromised with the colonizers who remain in Kenya to this day.

KU'S KOBO 6--DRAFT

Working artists based at Kobo Trust hosted six Kenyatta University students during a one day ‘Occupy Studio’ exhibition mounted last weekend. The show, which occupied two levels of the gallery at Kobo, featured art works created by the six during their three months residency at the Trust. “The works being exhibited are exclusively by the student interns,” the Kobo veteran artist, Onyis Martis told BD Life a few minutes before the official opening of the ‘Occupy Studioshow. Onyis wanted to make that point clear since nearly all the older artists with studios at Kobo had a hand in mentoring the half-dozen painter-interns from KU. Those who did include Paul Njihia (whose paintings are currently up at Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI) in his own ‘Common Ground’ group exhibition together with Peterson Kamwathi, Elias Mung’ora, and Morris Foit since the previous weekend), David Thuku, Lemek Sompoika, Onesmus Okamai, Tim Ochola, and Peter Elungat who had previously been at Kobo but shifted to Kitengela where he has more space and fresh air. What was equally of interest to me was the fact that prior to the six finding their way to Kobo Trust, the university had no formal relationship with the Trust. “It was us who found our way to Kobo after checking out several other art centres and feeling Kobo would be better since most of us are painters as are the artists here,” said Nadia Wanjiru, who had been mentored mainly by both Njihia and Onyis during her time at Kobo. That independent spirit paid off well for the students who said they had learned so much about the vibrant Nairobi art scene since they had been at Kobo. What’s more, like the Mwacha Mila exhibition at Alliance Francaise and the recent ‘Under 30’ showcase at Village Market, all the interns are in their twenties. For instance, Nadia is 21 while Christabel Juma is 23. So are and Robert Mugambi. Only Njeri Njoroge is 24 and Mbogo Weru 25. And while no one had observed as Kamathi had done after walking through the Mwacha Mila exhibition and took note that we are witnessing the next generation of contemporary Kenyan artists, one felt that this is also true at Kobo Trust. What was equally true about the art works pf this younger generation was the fascinating mix of the subjects that interest these young artists. For while one paints snakes and another was a tattoo artist before he went to KU, almost all the artists were fortunate to have elders who supported and even encouraged these young women and men to pursue their dreams and go on to follow their passions to where they led. This is in sharp contrast to the perspective held by most parents just a few years ago when they couldn’t believe that professional artist could earn a living, leave alone a livelihood that was sustainable and enough to raise of family. One intern was washing his father’s paint brushes before he was five. “I had a passion for fine art flowing through my blood from an early fa=u Working artists based at Kobo Trust hosted six Kenyatta University artists last weekend during an ‘Occupy Studio’ exhibition

LESSONS LEARNED FROM EFFORTS TO BE RICH, YOUNG AND FAMOUS

By Margaretta wa Gacheru One lesson to be learned from the Dorian Production, to be ‘Young, Rich, and Famous’ staged last weekend at Kenya National Theatre, is that it can be hazardous to aspire to such a materialistic goal. Even deadly as one saw in the final moments of Derrick Wasswa’s latest production. Another lesson that might be wise for aspiring playwrights to learn is that it doesn’t necessarily pay the serve your production as both scriptwriter and director. That’s because every writer needs a second (or third) pair of eyes to critically appraise the writer’s work. Otherwise, they might discover on opening night that there are glaring gaps in the show, or loose ends that don’t get tied up or resolved or other issues like whatever happened to so-and-so who disappears without a trace. In Wasswa’s case, one has to wonder, what happened to the guy behind bars in the first scene? Was he left to languish in jail for the rest of his days simply because, after joining the military, he didn’t follow his commander’s order to shoot everyone he encounters in some village where terrorists are said to exist? What I learned from one kind-hearted cast member after the play was that the young woman Claudine, who’d come to help the man get out of jail on ethical grounds, was actually the baby Claudine, born to the rich and famous woman who died at the story’s end. Apparently twenty odd years had elapsed since baby Claudine was born to Clara, the young woman who’d aimed to be rich and famous, but died in childbirth. We can’t be sure who the father was. It would seem that Kingstone, the rich sugar daddy who had given Clara five million before he had her shot, was Claudine’s dad. It would also seem that Claudine was transformed from being a sort of social worker into the story’s Narrator. She’s the one to take us back in time via flashback to meet her mother, the young woman wanting nothing more in life than to be young, rich and famous. It doesn’t matter to her that she was disrupting another woman’s life, the genuine wife of Kingstone, Angelica. Clara had already let him buy her a fully-furnished flat where she stayed with her mum. He has even given her his credit card to go shop to her heart’s content. But the one thing that turns his love into deadly intent is her insistence on having the baby that he has insisted she abort, but she’d refused. That became his grounds for getting rid of her. He let other men carry out the deed and somehow, her baby survived. But that’s how fast one can lose their wealth, fame, and life. So the third and final lesson learned from Wasswa’s play is that it’s rarely a brilliant idea to create a complicated plot, then include lots of exotic, erotic dancing to story’s complexities with the aid of that kind cast member who helped me draw two family trees, one for Clara whose mom was Angelica, a woman whose lover had been Kingstone until he got involved with her daughter Clara. After that she became Kingstone’s accomplice in his scheme to get his money back and the baby eliminated. The other family tree was for Kingstone and his wife who’d discovered her man had left zero cash in the bank. She learned where all the money had gone. It is thereafter that she got involved in selling Clara an insurance policy that included a clause ensuring that, if anything happens to her, all her funds would go back to Kingstone. Okay, that’s a bit crazy, but if Clara saw through this scheme, it was already too late for her to change the insurance policy. She didn’t see what was coming. For in the blink of an eye, she got attacked and then, bang! She was dead. But that’s not the end of violence. One other person wanted revenge for the assassination of her dad. It was Claudine who knew Kingstone killed her real dad. She had never really warmed up to her step-dad Kingstone so she hired hitmen to polish him off. But then, at the last minute, she got cold feet and tried to stop his murder. When she got to the scene where the murder was scheduled, she tried to stop it. Instead, the lights went off; then we hear a shot, and we assume Kingstone was hit, but maybe not. If it sounds like an easy story to understand, think again Mr. Wasswa.

NCAI'S COMMON GROUND DRAFT 7.13.2023

The current exhibition at the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute (NCAI) is exceptional, possibly their best show since Michael Armitage, our acclaimed Anglo-Kenyan artist, opened its door in 2022. Yet for some, it might not be immediately apparent why Don Handa entitled the exhibition ‘Common Ground’ or why he curated a show that includes these four artists, Peterson Kamwathi, Paul Njihia, Elias Mung’ora, and Morris Foit. After all, three of the four are painters. Yet Peterson’s contribution is primarily in charcoal and cut-outs, while Njihia and Mung’ora are primarily painters working with acrylics. But again, Mung’ora also paints using mixed media, including mabati (corrugated iron) and photo-transfer, thus creating a more surrealist effect in contrast to Njihia’s figurative works. And Morris Foit is a sculptor who, like the other three, has been given a whole room to show the five wooden sculptures that now belong in NCAI’s permanent collection. “We are buying art since we are building a permanent collection so that works by our best artists don’t all get taken abroad, and then we’d have nothing to show for our East African contemporary art,” Handa tells BD Life. The NCAI curator is sighting a genuine problem since international interest in Kenyan and East African art generally is growing rapidly, particularly since the pandemic period inadvertently gave people time to browse the internet and discover our art for themselves. Meanwhile, a younger generation of gifted Kenyan artists has taken to displaying their art online, particularly on Instagram. It is still considered prestigious for an artist to be invited to display his or her work in galleries, which also seem to be sprouting up everywhere. This is a positive sign although it is often that the newer galleries don’t necessarily know the difference between fine art and mediocre work. Back to the issue of what is the ‘Common Ground’ of the new NCAI exhibition? Handa clarified that point last weekend during NCAI’s public ‘Walk Around’ the exhibition, and he gave a curatorial talk. What he made clear is that all the art is associated literally with the ground or with land and land-related issues. Land and community are also concerns of the four. Starting with Morris Foit’s gigantic tree stump given to him by Michael Armitage who told Morris to do with it as he liked. So, he carved out an entire community grounded in that huge stump. It’s miraculous what Morris created. He carved out a family, a musician, a priest praying, men drinking together, a drunkard, and even a gorilla got etched deeply into that stump. And included in its trade to NCAI were four more totems that surround this unique sculpture, as if they’re watching over the stump. Kamwathi’s 29 charcoal cut-outs that cover two walls at NCAI’s spacious gallery are also knock-out amazing. The 29 have their backs to you, mostly raised-arms, holding up signs in protest of what we don’t know. But we applaud them as we live in a wacky world that requires people to stand up (as they all are) and refuse to accept the disarray caused by man-made disasters, policed by armed men seen in his other paintings. Njihia’s congregations, mostly of school children, all dressed up in colorful school uniforms may be regimented according to institutional rules. But they are painted in a charming realism that carries over to senior school youth in their dressy ties and jackets repeating the same theme. All are grounded in communities of children fulfilling parents’ aspirations. There is just one perplexing painting in which a headmaster or politician is drawn as if he overlays the other characters. He’s addressing exactly who, one cannot tell. But that layer of black lines initially looks abstract and alien from Njihia’s other works. Their latent significance leaves interpretation to the viewer as do all of these evocative works. Mun’gora has only two pieces in this iconic show of contemporary Kenyan art. Nonetheless, his concern for land and its ownership are implicit in both paintings. Both stamped with time and history, the mabati portrait of a wall suggests deterioration in post-colonial times while the other semi-abstract piece is steeped in symbols that echo colonial days when ex-patriots claimed ownership of African lands. Their lingering presence is seen in the group of security men hired in real time to guard the ground they still believe is best left to them. That is where Kamwathi’s protestors come in to insist this is not the case. It belongs to Foit’s people and Njihia’s children of tomorrow.

WOO TO THOSE WANTING TO BE 'YOUNG, RICH, AND FAMOUS

One lesson to be learned from the Doria Production of ‘Young, Rich, and Famous’ is that it can be hazardous to aspire to such a materialistic goal. Even deadly as one saw in the final moments of Derrick Wasswa’s new play. Another lesson that might be wise for aspiring playwrights to learn is that it doesn’t necessarily pay the serve your production as both scriptwriter and director. That’s because every writer needs a second (or third) pair of eyes to critically appraise the writer’s work. Otherwise, they might discover on opening night that there are glaring gaps in the production, or loose ends that don’t get tied up or resolved or other issues that they didn’t see until confronted by audience members who want to know what became of so-and-so or other similar questions. In Wasswa’s case, I would be one of the first to inquire, what happened to the guy behind bars in the first scene? Was he left to languish in jail for the rest of his days simply because he, after joining the military, didn’t follow his commander’s order to shoot everyone he encounters in some village where terrorists are said to exist? What I learned from one kind-hearted cast member after the play was that the young woman, aiming to help the man in jail get out on ethical grounds, was actually the baby born to the rich and famous woman who dies at the story’s end. Apparently twenty odd years have elapsed since the flashback had taken place and the baby Claudine was born to Clara. But we can’t be sure who the father was. It would seem that Kingstone, the rich man and sugar daddy who had given Clara five million before he had her shot, was Claudine’s dad. It would also seem that Claudine was transformed from being a sort of social worker or law intern into the story’s narrator. She’s the one to take us back in time via flashback to meet her mum, the young woman wanting nothing more in life than to be young, rich and famous. It doesn’t matter to her that she had disrupted another woman’s life, the genuine wife of Kingstone, Angelica. Clara had already let him buy her a fully furnished flat where she stayed with her mum. He has even given her his credit card to go shop to her heart’s content. But the one thing that turns his love into deadly intent is her insistence on having the baby that he has insisted she abort, but she refuses. That becomes his grounds for getting rid of her. He has other men carry out the deed and somehow, her baby survives. But that’s how fast one can lose their wealth, fame, and life itself. So the third and final lesson learned from Wasswa’s play is that it’s rarely a brilliant idea to create a complicated plot, then include lots of exotic, erotic dancing to titillate story’s complexities with the aid of another cast member who helped me draw two family trees, one for Clara whose mom was Angelica, a woman whose lover had been Kingstone until he got involved with her daughter Clara. After that she became Kingstone’s accomplice in his scheme to get his money back and the baby eliminated. The other family tree was for Kingstone and his wife Angelica who discovers her man had left zero cash in the bank. She learns where all the money went. It is thereafter that she gets involved in selling Clara an insurance policy that includes a clause ensuring that, if anything happens to her, all her funds will go back to Kingstone. Okay, that’s a bit crazy, but if Clara sees through this scheme, it is already too late for her to change the insurance policy. But she doesn’t see this coming. For in the blink of an eye, she gets attack and bang! She is dead. But that’s not the end of violence. One other person wants revenge for the assassination of her dad. It’s Yolanda who knows Kingstone killed her real dad, had never really warmed up to her step-dad Kingstone. She hires hitmen to polish him off. But then, at the last minute, she gets cold feet and tries to stop his murder. When she gets to the scene where the murder is scheduled, she tries to stop it. Instead, the lights go off, we hear the shot, and we assume Kingstone was hit. If it sounds like an easy story to understand, think again Mr Wasswa.

CELEBRATING MICERE MUGO Day 1 out of 3 full days devoted to Micere

By Margaretta wa Gacheru

Celebrations, tributes, and performances in remembrance of the life and rich legacy of Professor Micere Mugo were held over the past fortnight all around Nairobi, As I write, BD Life only attended one, last Monday at the Kenya Cultural Centre’s Ukumbi Mbogo. That one was coincidental with the celebration Pan African Women’s Day and the concept of ‘Love as a Practice’ which correlates at several points with the philosophy of Utu/Ubuntu, a notion so important to the understanding of Micere. Organized by the team of Irene Asuwa and Ruzuna Akoth from the Feminist Conversations Kenya, the women in attendance were not drawn from the upper escelon of Nairobi society. There were several feminist scholars, academics, and activists among the room-full of Kenyan women and men. In the main were mostly grassroot women from the heart of Eastlands, from Kayole, Dandora, Eastleigh, and Buru Buru. Apart from the former Presidential candidate Martha Karua, there were no big-name women leaders in the hall, only women leaders of grassroot organizations like Ukombozi Library, Social Justice Centre, Ecological Justice, and Cheche Books and Art Centre. But we were all attentive when Irene and Ruzuna ran a video featuring Micere speaking about her own ethical upbringing. It was wonderful listening to this charismatic professor who I had the good fortune to listen to at University of Nairobi before she had to flee the country for her life. Micere was explaining how she was raised by a father who brought his daughters up to know themselves as fully entitled to be treated on equal terms with boys and men in every walk of life. She spoke almost reverently about the way the children were taught never to impose their will or wishes upon any of the workers they had on the family’s land. “We were not poor. In fact, my father had more than 150 workers on his land at a time. But he also taught never to treat them, or anyone, like a lesser being,” Micere explained. She further shared how she was brought up to treasure humility and to always practice it. She was also brought up to know she could do what was traditionally seen as men’s work just as easily as men could learn to do women’s work. “The chores were all shared equally so that girls learned to do boys’ work, and boys could learn women’s work as well,” she added. Her upbringing clearly had an impact on her expectations and dreams. For example, even as she came home from Canada after living overseas for many years, (becoming the first Kenyan woman to earn a Ph.D in Literature in the process), she rapidly rose from being a lecturer at University of Nairobi to become a professor, and eventually the Dean of the Faculty of the Arts. During the three hours program held in her remembrance in the US (and which was featured on local TV and YouTube), many speakers shared their experience of Micere’s many initiatives to assist those in need and less fortunate than she. Micere was also a great African revolutionary at heart. It was in that spirit that the Traveling Theatre from the Social Justice Centre based in Kayole came to the National Theatre to stage an incredible play, scripted by David Tafari. Based on a true story, the 1945 massacre of women protestors who were adamant about not being party to the destruction of the Aberdares rain forest. This was before the Emergency was declared by the Colonizer in 1952. Some say the women’s intense resistance to chopping down the forest in order that coal mines be dug, roused awareness and anxiety among the Brits. It showed the Brits a level of powerful grassroots resistance that they hadn’t anticipated. The dramatic portrait of the women outwitting the oppressive rules established to more effectively exploit Africa’s lands, air, and laborers, offended the women greatly. They were not only being told to go dig the trenches but also to chop down the trees. Their resistance to these so-called rules revealed a revolutionary spirit and militant solidarity that couldn’t easily be broken. The colonizer finally gave up on ‘politely’ making the women comply. It was then that he sent in his Home Guards to ‘teach them a lesson’. More than 100 women were slaughtered and hundreds more badly beaten, maimed for life. It was only after that eventful day in 1945 that men were brought in to do the dirty work the women had resisted. The lesson in all this is not that the job got done by men. It was that the revolutionary spirit lives on, proving as Micere believed, that equity and social justice are real possibilities.

HEARTSTRINGS EXPOSE INSTITUTIONAL ROT

Heartstrings Entertainment dug deep into the rot of contemporary Kenyan society to explore and expose some the absurd and elaborate means by which bogus ‘professionals’ try to exploit vulnerable people in their hour of need. In a “Pinch of Salt’ which they staged last weekend at Alliance Francaise, they were particularly hard hitting at the religious, medical, and even indigenous so-called healers that Lisa Muambua (Bernice Nthenya) is prepared to consult in her efforts to have a child.

Lisa’s desire for children first comes to light at the house-warming party she has organized to celebrate the completion of their multi-million-shilling home that her husband Hezekiah (Tim Ndisii) has managed to build. Her guests of honor are the Pastor (Ibrahim Kinuthia) and his wife (Jane Wangari) who we can see are as bogus as they come. They have not only monetized religion and especially ‘healing’ prayers. The wife is such a wheeler dealer that her tally of expenses for praying first for Lisa and Hez to have a child, and for protection of the house rounds out to Sh2 million only. What’s more, the so-called Pastor doesn’t even know where the book of Revelation is in the Bible.

The hypocrisy and narrow view of religion is further seen when she lashes out at Lisa’s inebriated friend Veronica (Zeitun Salat) who arrives late wearing a chic but sexy tight and short black leather dress. She rushed to cover up Vero with a lasso she has on hand, but is stopped by Lisa who reminds her of the basic Christian tenet, to judge not that ye be not judged. In the meantime, the cook Sosi (Arnold Savior) takes advantage of the situation and come join the party. He inadvertently rubs more salt into Lisa’s wound by discussing his triplets who everybody believed were baby boys until somebody double checked and found they were baby girls.

The rambling discussions of kids actually began the moment their neighbor and friend, Baba Baraka showed up with his five-year-old boy (Director Sammy Mwangi’s son). They are on their way to Switzerland to take Baraka to Boarding school. Clearly, the Muambuas have moved into a high-class community and Lisa uses this to reinforce her argument with Hez. She tells him all the neighbors have offspring. Only they are childless, as if to suggest that children are like trophies in this elite neck of society. But that doesn’t dissuade him from telling her they must, for some unknown reason, wait a while longer.

Nonetheless, Lisa takes him to a medical clinic to get advice and a prescription to enhance the prospect of her pregnancy. But at Simon Murage’s clinic they only find another imposter who promises to provide whatever prescription they want. You name it, he will have it, or pretend to have it. Hezekia sees the sham and insists they leave. Heartstrings does several double-bookings of characters in Pinch of Salt. For instance, Simon Murage is enacted by the same Fischer Maina as the Baba who was off to Switzerland. But the actor was so good at transforming his character that the Baba was invisible in the bogus medic. The other actor who totally transforms his character is the Cook who becomes the Witch Doctor that Liza and Hez finally go to see in her desperation to get a child. Harold Savior is hilarious as the touchy WD who hands her a potion she readily accepts, but Hez denies it and shouts the WD down, apparently paining the grassroots medic with his shrill rebuke that causes the WD to shrivel up and fall to the ground, giving off guttural sounds in the process.

This show rambled on a bit longer than necessary, possibly due to unnecessary interventions like the bit with the Contractor and his Assistant, which didn’t add value to the main storyline. The final scene is critical since Lisa has been sleuthing herself and is out to stealthily entrap her bogus spouse who’s been keeping a crucial secret from her for a long time. She’s invited the same lot as before to her surprise party. She wants to announce that she is pregnant at last. Hezekia howled that’s impossible, apparently because they haven’t had sex recently. Then he finally admits he had a vasectomy, which is what she’d suspected. She is now on her way out of the marriage when he begs her to stay. Vasectomies are reversible and he will do it out of love for her. Otherwise, he feels this corrupt world is no place to bring a newborn to live. She complied, admitting she too was lying. She was not pregnant. But as she says, he’s a liar who perhaps shouldn’t be so easily let off the hook.

CARNIVAL GIRL GIVES JULISA MULTIPLE ROLES ON ONE STAGE

Who knew that Jullisa Rowe’s ‘Carnival Girl’ was practically a musical, filled with so much song and dance, all of which Ms Rowe had mastered with impeccable style and enchanting grace? Who knew that Carnival Girl would afford Ms Rowe the opportunity to perform a full range of characters and emotions in one solo production which she staged at the Social House in Lavington this past weekend? And who knew that she could be so captivating from the moment the show opened in a rush of upbeat, adrenalin-filled energy that never flagged. Only the ending took us down when the carnival girl found something BDLife can’t disclose. We would be a big-time spoiler for all those who haven’t yet seen the show if I disclosed the ending. Ideally, Julisa will restage this glorious production so the rest of Nairobi can come watch this electrified performance by a woman we have most recently seen wearing a director’s hat not an actor’s. Julisa directed Mugambe Nthiga last month in ‘Every Brilliant Thing’ and late last year in two separate Biblically-based productions, one by men about prominent leaders in the Bible’s Old Testament and one by women about prominent women from both the Old and New Testament. In both cases, she managed to draw from Kenya’s deep well of wonderful actors to attract some of the best in the business. Julisa clearly is an outstanding director. But Carnival Girl allowed her to stretch out and display her formidable skills as an actor who ran the gamut from child-like innocence and bewilderment at life to a mean-hearted clown. She is one of those rare performers who can flip in a flash from one character and emotion to the next without breaking her stride. The story itself is basically about a little girl born into a family with seven children and a father who goes off to war, gets captured and stuck in an enemy prison until who knows when, and a mom who dies soon after her last baby is born. So, the children deliberate (and here we have already seen Julisa start off as a circus barker enthusiastically welcoming his audience, then becoming a teenage boy among a host of youth deciding they can’t raise a baby since they are basically babes themselves. So they decide the Carnival is the best place to take the babe. Its members live like a family, the youth rationalize, so they will be able to look after the babe. So, without asking anyone, they drop the baby off, slipping it inside one of the carnival tents. The babe grows up to become a sweet but lost creature who wants to know her name, meaning her identity. Nobody in the Carnival can give her one, until she finally meets a Pastor and then things happen. The father appears, and she finally gets a name. It might sound simple, but not the way Julisa tells the story. Every single character the girl encounters has a different voice, demeanor, walk, attitude, and overall style. She does them all, from the Singer-Narrator, carnival Ring Master, and Fat Lady to the acrobat, crusty clown, and tap dancer to the Pastor who reminds her she has a heavenly Father up until her own father magically reappearing and finally gives her a name. The set for her performance is simple and sparce. It’s basically a high chair where she sits when she is not dashing around the stage, which is what she does most of the time since she demonstrates her scenes with vivid and colorful verbal and body language. Her interpretation of characters is always with an immediacy that gives each one an identity of their own. The rest of her set has a few musical instruments laying around, but no one uses them. Her sound system is impeccable. The music is prerecorded but finely tuned so that its sound effects are right on time. Ms Rowe has neither an operatic voice nor a folksy county-Western style. But the beauty of pop music is that if you can carry a tune and especially if your voice has a wide unbroken range, which she has, then you can sing to your heart’s content and the public will love what you sing. The main thing is to sing with conviction, and Julisa has plenty of that. Her performance lights up the stage and little carnival girl has her query into identity as an existential quest finally answered, and we’re happy for that, Abigail.

ART FOR CHANGE BRINGS INDEPENDENT ARTISTS TO THE FORE

By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted August 4, 2023) ART FOR CHANGE WAS IN ITS SECOND EDITION WHEN IT OPENED LAST WEEKEND AT THE SARIT EXPO CENTRE. “ “WE HOPE THE NEXT TIME WE HAVE AN ART FOR CHANGE, WE CAN TRANSFORM IT INTO A BIENNALE,” AFC CURATOR WILLIAM NDWIGA TOLD BDLIFE SOON AFTER THE OPENING. WITH NEARLY 90 ARTISTS IN THE SHOW AND ALMOST 400 WORKS OF ART ON DISPLAY, MANY BY WELL-KNOWN LOCAL ARTISTS, KENYA’S CAPACITY FOR ACTUALLY BEING A REGIONAL ART HUB IS OBVIOUS. WHAT ENABLED THE EXHIBITION TO BE HELD IN SUCH A PROMINENT SETTING WAS THE BACKING FROM SEVERAL ARTS SUPPORTERS. THEY INCLUDE THE KENYA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION AS WELL AS THE ASIAN FOUNDATION, GA INSURANCE, SARIT EXPO CENTRE ITSELF, AND THE LITTLE GALLERY WHICH IS WHERE NGWIGA COMES FROM. THE EXPO CENTRE IS VAST, BUT IT WAS NDWIGA WHO CREATED A KIND OF LABYRINTH EFFECT BY PUTTING UP PANELS AROUND THE HALL WHICH PARTITIONED OFF CONVENIENT CUBICALS WHERE A NUMBER OF ARTISTS CLAIMED FOR THEMSELVES. AMONG THE ARTISTS THAT OCCUPIED THOSE MINI-GALLERIES WITHIN THE LARGER CENTRE SPACE INCLUDE EVERYONE FROM MAGGIE OPIENO, SEBASTIAN KIARIE, BERTIERS MBATIA AND COSTER OJWANG TO ANNE MWITI, PATRICK KINUTHIA, JOHN KARIUKI AND PETER KENYANYA TO ALEX WAINAINA, ADAM MASAVA AND THE MUKURU ARTISTS COLLECTIVE. IN ADDITION, THERE WERE A NUMBER OF ARTISTS WHOSE WORKS WERE SCATTERED AROUND THE GALLERY SUCH AS PETER ELUNGAT, ADRIAN NDUMA, CLAVERS ODHIAMBO, WAWERU GICHUHI, AND EVANS YEGON, ALL PROMINENT ARTISTS IN THEIR OWN RIGHT. SARIT EXPO CENTRE’S ROLE IN SUPPORTING ART FOR CHANGE WAS PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT SINCE THEY DONATED THE HALL AND DIDN’T REQUIRE PAYMENT FOR THE DAYS THE ARTISTS OCCUPIED THE SPACE. AND KCDF IS THE ORGANIZATION THAT ACTUALLY FOUNDED ART FOR CHANGE. “KENYA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION RECOGNIZES THE ROLE THE VISUAL ARTS CAN PLAY IN STRENGTHENING KENYA’S CREATIVE ECONOMY,” SAYS NDWIGA. “THEY UNDERSTAND THAT ART HAS THE POTENTIAL FOR LIBERATING ARTISTS FROM POVERTY AND UNEMPLOYMENT, WHICH MEANS THE ARTS HAVE A CENTRAL ROLE IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT,” HE ADDS THE ASIAN FOUNDATION WORKS CLOSELY WITH SARIT AND THEY ALSO SHARE THAT AVANT GUARD PERSPECTIVE, APPRECIATING HOW THE ARTS CAN BE INVOLVED IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT. AND NDWIGA THROUGH HIS LITTLE GALLERY HAS BEEN CURATING EXHIBITIONS OF LOCAL ARTISTS FOR MORE THAN A DECADE, SO HE KNOWS MANY OF THE RISING STARS IN THE WORLD OF VISUAL ART. AT THE SAME TIME, HE HAS THE FLEXIBILITY AND EXPERIENCE TO KNOW HOW TO CREATE AN EXHIBITION FROM SCRATCH. PLUS, NDWIGA KNOWS HOW TO CALL UPON ARTISTS WHO MAY HAVE WORKS IN THEIR STUDIOS BUT NO PLANS TO EXHIBIT THEM. FOR INSTANCE, I DON’T KNOW HOW SOON WE WOULD HAVE SEEN PETER ELUNGAT’S PAINTING ENTITLED ‘NEW BORN’ WHICH REVEALS NEW WAYS THAT WE SEE ELUNGAT USING COLOR AND FORM AS WELL AS HIS ICONIC IMAGERY OF BEAUTIFUL WOMEN. AND WE HAVENT SEEN MANY WORKS BY WAWERU GICHUHI RECENTLY SO IT WAS GOOD TO SEE SOME OF HIS RECENT WORK IN THE SHOW. PLUS ARTISTS LIKE JOHN KARIUKI HAVE NOW GONE BEYOND HAVING POTENTIAL TO ACTUALLY BRANCHING OUT INTO NEW DESIGNS THAT ARE MORE EXPANSIVE AND ORIGINAL. BERTIERS HAS AN ENTIRE CORNER TO HIMSELF, WHICH IS GREAT SINCE ONE ALWAYS NEEDS MORE TIME ‘READING’ HIS PAINTINGS SINCE HE INVARIABLY ASSEMBLES WORLD LEADERS AT THE MOMENT HE BEGINS ON A WORK SO YOU CAN KNOW WHAT YEAR THAT WAS BY SEEING THE LEADERS WHO SHOW UP IN HIS ART. HE IS SUCH A GOOD DRAFTSMAN THAT HIS LEADERS ARE EASILY RECOGNIZED. YOU MAY SEE HILARY CLINTON ON A CANVAS WITH ANGELA MERKEL, BARAK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, AND BORIS JOHNSON. HE IS AN AVID READER OF NEWSPAPERS SO HE KEEPS UP ON INTERNATIONAL NEWS. HE CAN ALSO THROW IN LOCAL POLITICIANS LIKE RAILA, MOI, AND MARTHA KARUA. I DON’T THINK I HAVE YET SEEN A DR RUTO AS YET IN HIS ARTISTRY; BUT THEN AGAIN, BERTIERS HAS A PAINTING OF A WIDOW IN THIS SHOW, ONE OF HIS NEWER WORKS. SO ONE CAN NEVER KNOW WHERE THIS GIFTED ARTIST WILL GO WITH HIS ART. BERTIERS’ MATATU SCULPTURES ARE ALSO THERE IN THE EXHIBITION WHICH I KNOW WILL ONLY ACCRUE IN VALUE OVER TIME. THEY REFLECT THE PERIOD WHEN MATATUS COULD RECKLESSLY ABIDE BY THE ADAGE ‘ALWAYS ROOM FOR ONE MORE’ WHERE PASSENGERS EXCEED ANY LAWFUL RANGE OF PSV’S CAPACITY. BUT HIS WELDED SCULPTURES ARE STILL REFLECTIVE OF THE ARTIST’S RARE SENSE OF HUMOR. HE IS AN ARTIST WHO CAN LAUGH AT HIMSELF AS WELL AS AT HIS FELLOW KENYANS FOR ALL THEIR QUIRKY WAYS OF BEING AND DOING.